DESCRIPTION: The long term objective is to apply the physicochemical properties that modified nucleosides contribute to nucleic acids to the design of pharmaceutical agents that inhibit translation. The research is focused on understanding the contributions of several modified nucleosides to RNA structural stability, ion binding, dynamics, folding, RNA-RNA interactions, and RNA-protein interactions. In particular, the contributions of modified nucleosides to the properties, structures, and functions of various domains from tRNA will be studied using CD, NMR, and biochemical methods. The information will be used to design inhibitors of translation.